schoolwork all morning long. All she can think about when she looks at her teacher is the … what-it-is that’s going on between her and Mr. Emerson. It is adorable, but also unnerving! She wants her teachers to be happy (especially Ms. Perez), and she thinks it would be great if they got married and had kids and—ooo!—named their baby girl Yasaman. They should, after all, given the role Yaz has played in their romance.
But then, on the other hand, the romance aspect of it all freaks her out. It is so real, and grown-up-ish, and involves actual love letters that Yasaman has actually read. She is not sure she is ready to know about a grownup romance. She might even be sure she’s not. Except that it’s exciting, and anyway, it’s too late, because she already does know and there’s no going back.
It makes it difficult to concentrate on her vocabulary quiz. And her multiplication facts and everything.
Hottie-with-a-body, she thinks. Magical evenings. Bonus kisses. Aaagh! Yaz doesn’t know how to put away all of this thrilling-slash-disturbing knowledge she accidentally learned. Except she didn’t “accidentally” learn it at all, did she?
She doesn’t know what to do with that piece of the puzzle, either.
She wasn’t lying yesterday when she said that everyone in the whole wide world has secrets. Just, some secrets are too big to hold in, and Yaz is fairly sure she’ll explode if she has to keep the contents of Ms. Perez and Mr. Emerson’s note to herself for much longer. She wanted to tell her flower friends about the notes, but she felt like she shouldn’t. Like it would be a betrayal of her teachers’ privacy. But maybe Ms. Perez and Mr. Emerson shouldn’t have been passing notes during school, anyway. Did they think of that? And maybe they shouldn’t have asked Yasaman to be their delivery girl, either. Did they think of that???
The bottom line is that yes, Yaz is happy that Mr. Emerson and Ms. Perez—or John and Maria—are, ah, getting along so well. But knowing about their study dates and their nachos, and especially about their kissing (!!!), is waaaaaay more stressful than Yaz could have imagined, so when Ms. Perez releases the class for morning break, Yaz is up and out of her desk like a bullet.
Yaz worms past Natalia and Chance and Preston, and she reaches the door that leads to the playground before any of them.
“Yaz?” she hears through the muzzy-buzzing of her thoughts. It’s Katie-Rose. She’s probably wondering why her friend has suddenly turned into an Olympic-class sprinter. “Yaz?!”
Yaz could stop running and let Katie-Rose catch up with her and spill everything to Katie-Rose right now, even though Katie-Rose would gag and make vomit noises and be totally horrified that two teachers are acting so lovey-dovey. But the cold air is a tonic to Yasaman’s flushed skin. Her muscles burn as she sprints down the field, and it feels good. Her lungs are tight, and her heart thumps against her ribcage, and oh, that’s good, too, because it leaves nothing left for thinking.
“Yasaman!” she hears.
She runs.
“Yasaman!”
Her shirt pulls against her chest. Someone’s grabbed it, trying to make her stop. She keeps going, pulling against the tugging, but she can’t run forever. Anyway, she’s ready to talk now. She thinks. Once she catches her breath, that is.
She leans over, sucking wind and bearing her weight on her thighs.
“Yaz?”
Yasaman turns, panting.
“Violet,” she says between gasps. She was expecting Katie-Rose.
Violet’s forehead is lined with worry. Unlike Yaz, who is huffing and puffing, Violet is elegant and perfectly unmussed.
“Are you okay?” Violet says. “What’s going on? Is something wrong?”
Yaz shakes her head. Then she nods her head. She holds up one finger to say give me a second, and takes in great gulps of the cool November air. Then she straightens her spine and drags the back of her hand across her sweaty forehead.
Violet regards her. “Let’s walk,” she says, linking her arm through Yasaman’s.
“Good idea,” Yaz says.
They start off along “the loop,” as Rivendell calls it. It’s the broadest circle you can make within the confines of the playground, right alongside the metal fence that separates the playground from Lemay Avenue at one end and the somewhat spooky railroad tracks at the other.
Yasaman’s breathing grows more regular. Violet strolls patiently, not pressing. She doesn’t unhook her arm from Yasaman’s.
“So,” Yaz says at last.
“So,” Violet repeats.
Yaz gives a sideways peek at her friend. “I needed to run.”
“My brain was spinning.”
“I’ve felt that way before,” Violet says. They take several more steps. “How come? If you want to tell me, that is.”
“I do,” Yaz says. She means it, too. She checks to make sure no one is nearby, then stops walking and confesses everything, all in a rush: Mr. Emerson. Ms. Perez. Dating and kissing and sending each other sweet (but somewhat disturbing!) love notes, and all of this right under Yasaman’s nose!!!
Violet’s eyes grow wider and wider with each new detail. When Yaz finally stops talking, she closes her eyes and keeps them closed for a long moment. Then she opens them with a snap. “Wow,” she says.
“Exactly.”
Violet starts walking again. Yaz matches her pace.
“They shouldn’t have used you as a messenger,” she says.
“I know,” Yaz says.
“But … it’s kind of cool that they did.”
“I know.”
“It’s kind of exciting, even.”
Yaz sighs. “I know.”
“So the question is, did anything bad happen? Do you feel like you need to tell Ms. Westerfeld or anything?”
Ms. Westerfeld? The principal? “No!” Yaz exclaims. “Omigoodness, Violet. If I told Ms. Westerfeld …” She shudders, imagining her teachers getting in trouble. Surely they would … wouldn’t they? “Why would I tell Ms. Westerfeld?”
“Well, apparently you wouldn’t,” Violet says. “So we answered that question. So, good.”
Yes, good. Yaz nods, relieved.
“And we always have said how cute they’d be together,” Violet goes on. She squeezes Yaz’s elbow. “You, especially, thought they’d be cute together.”
Yaz nods again.
“And now they really are together, so that’s another good thing. But I do think you should demand to be their flower girl when they get married.”
Yaz giggles. It feels as if a too-tight shoelace around her insides has finally been loosened. “I was thinking they should name their firstborn child after me.”
“Absolutely,” Violet argues. “Unless it’s a boy, in which case maybe they’ll name him after Mr. Emerson.”
“John Junior,” Yaz says.
“Well … unless they use his nickname. Mr. E’s, I mean.”
“Huh?”
“C’mon. Can’t you just see it?” Violet pretends to be Ms. Perez, holding a little baby. “And here is our little darling, Hottie-with-a-Body. We call him Hottie for short.”
“Agh!” Yaz cries, covering both of her ears with her hands. She giggles and giggles and giggles.
Violet grins. She waits until Yaz has calmed down, and says, “But hey, I don’t think you should worry about … you know. Reading their notes or whatever.”
“You don’t? You don’t think it was wrong of me?”
“Well, sure it was wrong. But in the big picture, I don’t think you need to worry about it.”
“Explain.”
“You said you’re not going to tell on them. You said you don’t want to tell on them. So that means your conscience doesn’t think you need to tell on them, and so that means”—Violet shrugs—“that even your conscience isn’t freaking out about it. You might be, but not your conscience, and Yaz? You have a very strong conscience.”
“I do?”
“You do.”
“I do,” Yaz says. She lets the truth flood in. With it comes a tidal wave of relief.
“So I don’t need to do anything? Like, for example, tell Ms. Perez I read her personal and private love notes?”
“Why in the world would you do that?” Violet says. She stops walking and stares across the field. She puts her hand over her eyes and squints.
“But what if they ask me to pass more notes?”
“If you don’t want to, just tell them no,” Violet says. She changes course, veering across the field instead of continuing along the loop. “Unless you don’t mind, that is.”
“I don’t know if I do or not. Would you, if you were me?”
Violet seems distracted. “Huh?”
“If Mr. Emerson asked you to take a note to Ms. Perez, would you?”
“Yaz, hold that thought. Um, we’ll talk later, all right?”
“Why later?” She grabs Violet’s arm. “We’re talking now, so why can’t we keep talking now?”
“I just …” Violet shoots her a tight smile. “I can’t.”
Yaz knits her brow. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I hope. But I’ve got to run, ’kay?”
She pulls free, and Yaz watches, perplexed and more than a little dismayed, as Violet hurries over to the play structure.
Oh, Yaz thinks, putting the pieces together. It’s Hayley. Violet’s worried about Hayley because Hayley’s standing by the slide, surrounded by Modessa, Quin, and Elena. They’re standing awfully close. Menacingly close. The four of them are talking, but Yaz can’t make out what they’re saying.
Violet reaches them, and Yaz’s breath hitches. Two minutes ago, Violet’s elbow was hooked through Yasaman’s. Now she’s elbowing her way into Modessa’s little circle, and Yaz doesn’t like it one bit. She doesn’t want Hayley to get hurt, but she doesn’t want Violet to get hurt, either.
If anyone’s going to get hurt. In all honesty, she doesn’t know what to think of the scene unfolding before her. She knows that Modessa and her buddies are bad news, but she doesn’t know if Hayley agrees. She doesn’t know if the Evil Chicks are even being mean to Hayley, or to Violet. She’s too far away to tell.
She knows what she feels, though. Violet was helping her, and then she decided to run off and help Hayley instead.
It doesn’t feel good.